Saturday, March 9, 2013

It's rather uncanny how opposite Oz the Great and Powerful is from Jack the Giant Slayer. Both films deal with giants and little people, as we should expect, but while I am not a fan of James Franco, he effortlessly pulls off a sleazy con-artist to fit the stereotype that has been created of the rich and business owners only looking out for themselves. It was an interesting choice, in this character poster, to have Oz at the Dark Forest--the motif we see in Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman, and Oz even has an poisoned apple in it--because the Dark Forest is the spiritual purgation he needs but doesn't want.

I never thought I would be saying this,...
The implied audience for Oz: The Great and Powerful are people who have seen,... The Apparition. In other words, the multi-million dollar Disney which surprised me with how good it is, in spite of me not being a fan of any of the four leading actors, makes a powerful case against the little-seen film that got so much hype and fell so flat. Why? There are at least two themes in Oz shared with The Apparition, whose tagline is, "Once you believe, you die." This theme of "believing" is prevalent throughout Oz, because if we don't believe, we die. And the second theme is,...﻿

Recall, if you will, the bits we JUST SAW in The Croods trailer and how "Guy" (Ryan Reynolds) is always inventing things, like fire, and shoes, and a belt,... that is intentionally meant to belittle great men like Edison. I would like to see them invent a light bulb and a power grid to run Boston on it,...

﻿Thomas Edison.
Even if you did see The Apparition, you probably didn't watch the end credits, where this exact photograph of Edison (above) appears, for no reason whatsoever. Edison is never mentioned by name in the film or even by invention, BUT the house being haunted is next to an electric field and those towers of electricity, resulting from inventions by Edison, are constantly in the audiences range of vision. This is all I will say about it now, but while I work on the Oz post, you might want to take a quick look at Entities Of Power: The Apparition & Thomas Edison which I only posted because reader John Wilson asked me to,... Thanks, John!
Here is the second trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness; please look for themes we have seen before:

Where have we seen the character of Kirk before?
No, that's not a trick question that we saw him in the first Star Trek before, but the characteristics he exhibits? We see his rebelliousness in Tony Stark (Iron Man, with Spock as his Jarvis) and Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) in Battleship and we see this in the characters in After Earth (Will Smith's son, trailer below) and Tom Cruise's character in Oblivion (and to at least some degree, we can add Duke Hauser [Channing Tatum] in GI Joe and Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard), and we have to ask why these qualities of rebelliousness Kirk embodies and so many American heroes do? Americans don't do things the way others do. BUT, there is a rather ominous erupting volcano: the last days of Pompeii? The destruction of Atlantis?
No, this isn't breaking news of North Korea attacking the US,... yet. This spot for Olympus Has Fallen shows us that the White House has literally been taken over by the Communists, and you thought I was just paranoid,...

Released just yesterday, this newest clip for After Earth gives me a lot to like in Will Smith's upcoming film:

This is one more film delivering a "destroyed world" which is quite the running theme we have going. What I like so much the resemblance to The Hunger Games, it's a kid--as it is in the Games--but he accepts the challenges, he doesn't stage a revolution against them, he knows this is a part of life, and what happens in the classroom is different than what happens in the real world. Including the smoking volcano we see in the background at about 1:12, there's a lot in this trailer, but I will let you unpack it.Spring Breakers is the story of four college student girls who rob a fast food shack (and what kind of business it is is important) to fund their spring break,... Yes, this is like The Bling Ring coming out, and like Project X:

All three films, Spring Breakers, The Bling Ring and Project X, and I project parts of Identity Thief deals with the same "vacation syndrome from reality" have a projected or intended audience, an audience not likely to be keeping up with politics, but an audience potentially influenced by films they see which will influence what they are willing to believe in the arena of political rhetoric. That's why they make movies like this for this particular audience.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

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Email thoughts and comments to thefineartdiner@gmail.com.
Please note: there is never just one correct interpretation, and I know that, I just rarely mention it nowadays; please do not think that, just because I have chosen to post one interpretation over another, doesn't mean that I think my interpretation is exclusively correct or other positions not possible. I would also like to point out that, we are living in a very defined, volatile culture with dynamic politics at play on the international stage and, whether you like to admit it or not, those elements go into the creation of art, which is why I include the political elements in my interpretations.
Thank you, have a nice day.